And these were the men who thought
themselves fitted to direct the masters in the
disposal of their capital! Hamper had said, only
this very day, that if he were ruined by the
strike, he would start life again, comforted
by the conviction that those who brought it
on were in a worse predicament than he
himself,—for he had head as well as hands, while
they had only hands; and if they drove away
their market, they could not follow it, nor
turn to anything else. But this thought was
no consolation to Mr. Thornton. It might
be that revenge gave him no pleasure; it
might be that he valued the position he had
earned with the sweat of his brow, so much
that he keenly felt its being endangered by
the ignorance or folly of others,—so keenly
that he had no thoughts to spare for what
would be the consequences of their conduct
to themselves. He paced up and down, setting
his teeth a little now and then. At last it
struck two. The candles were flickering in
their sockets. He lighted his own, muttering
to himself,

"Once for all, they shall know whom they
have got to deal with. I can give them a
fortnight,—no more. If they don't see their
madness before the end of that time, I must
have hands from Ireland. I believe it's
Slickson's doing,—confound him and his
dodges! He thought he was overstocked;
so he seemed to yield at first, when the
deputation came to him, and, of course, he only
confirmed them in their folly, as he meant to
do. That's where it spread from."

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH.

MRS. HALE was curiously amused and
interested by the idea of the Thornton dinner
party. She kept wondering about the details,
with something of the simplicity of a little
child, who wants to have all its anticipated
pleasures described beforehand. But the
monotonous life led by invalids often makes
them like children, inasmuch as they have
neither of them any sense of proportion in
events, and seem each to believe that the
walls and curtains which shut in their world,
and shut out everything else, must of necessity
be larger than anything hidden beyond.
Besides, Mrs. Hale had had her vanities
as a girl; had perhaps unduly felt their
mortification when she became a poor
clergyman's wife;—they had been smothered and
kept down; but they were not extinct; and
she liked to think of seeing Margaret dressed
for a party, and discussed what she should
wear with an unsettled anxiety that amused
Margaret, who had been more accustomed
to society in her one year in Harley Street
than her mother in five and twenty years of
Helstone.

"Then you think you shall wear your
white silk. Are you sure it will fit? It's
nearly a year since Edith was married!"

"Oh yes mamma! Mrs. Murray made it,
and it's sure to be right; it may be a straw's
breadth shorter or longer-waisted, according
to my having grown fat or thin. But I don't
think I've altered in the least."

"Had'nt you better let Dixon see it? It
may have gone yellow with lying by."

"If you like, mamma. But if the worst
comes to the worst, I've a very nice pink
gauze which aunt Shaw gave me, only two or
three months before Edith was married. That
can't have gone yellow."

"No! but it may have faded."

"Well! then I've a green silk. I feel more
as if it was the embarrassment of riches."

"I wish I knew what you ought to wear,"
said Mrs. Hale, nervously.

Margaret's manner changed instantly.
"Shall I go and put them on one after
another, mamma, and then you could see which
you liked best?"

"But—yes! perhaps that will be best."

So off Margaret went. She was very much
inclined to play some pranks when she was
dressed up at such an unusual hour; to make
her rich white silk balloon out into a cheese,
to retreat backwards from her mother as if
she were the queen; but when she found
that these freaks of hers were regarded as
interruptions to the serious business, and as
such annoyed her mother, she became grave
and sedate. What had possessed the world
(her world) to fidget so about her dress she
could not understand; but that very afternoon,
on naming her engagement to Bessy
Higgins (apropos of the servant that Mrs.
Thornton had promised to inquire about),
Bessy quite roused up at the intelligence.

"Dear! and are you going to dine at Thornton's
at Marlborough Mills?"

"Yes, Bessy. Why are you so surprised?"

"Oh, I dunno. But they visit wi' a' the first
folk in Milton."

'' And you don't think we're quite the first
folk in Milton, eh, Bessy?"

Bessy's cheeks flushed a little at her thought
being thus easily read.

"Well," said she, "yo see, they thinken a
deal o' money here; and I reckon yo've not
getten much."

"No," said Margaret, " that's very true.
But we are educated people, and have lived
amongst educated people. Is there anything
so wonderful in our being asked out to
dinner by a man who owns himself inferior
to my father by corning to him to be
instructed? I don't mean to blame Mr. Thornton.
Few drapers' assistants, as he was once,
could have made themselves what he is."

"But can yo give dinners back, in yo're
small house. Thornton's house is three times
as big."

"Well, I think we could manage to give
Mr. Thornton a dinner back, as you call it.
Perhaps not in such a large room, nor with
so many people. But I don't think we've
thought about it at all in that way."